


the art of falling and flying

by izadreamer



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, First Meeting, Pre-Series, and free, and somewhat flirtatious, the cat is out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 09:49:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5286101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izadreamer/pseuds/izadreamer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is a cold and chilly night in Paris when Adrien Agreste first meets the love of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the art of falling and flying

**Author's Note:**

> Half of this is just me playing around with Adrien/Chat’s character and the other half is said boy getting bulldozed by emotions.

Adrien Agreste is flying.

His feet hit the mansard roof with a solid thud and he dashes across, leaning low and his arms slightly outspread to keep his balance, a laugh caught in his throat. His footsteps are firm and rhythmic as his feet pound on the old stone, and combined with the low hum of city and sharp whistle of the wind, it is like music to his ears.

He reaches the end of the roof and jumps, arms flailing and smile wide, and when he lands on the next roof the laugh escapes him, loud and cheerful as he throws himself off the roof to the next one. It is a risky game he plays, balancing on the edge of flying and falling, but he can’t bring himself to worry about it. The night sky is alight with stars and freedom is distractingly sweet.

Paris has always been beautiful, and the view from his room is nothing to scoff at, but even that pales in comparison to this. The cold wind bites his face and his lungs burn from the exercise. The hour is late, his path lit by streetlamps and the soft glow from the widows.  The Eiffel Tower is a gleaming beacon to his eyes; the lights of the city are even more breathtaking when he’s running beside them.

Here, he isn’t Adrien Agreste, the lonely boy with the perfect mask and false smile. He is _more_ , a shadow flying through the air, untouchable and unchained, free in a way he has never been before in his entire life.

Another daring leap brings him higher, and he lands hard, spinning on his heel to face behind him, arms outspread. His suit is form-fitting but enough to keep him relatively warm in the chilly night, his mask unfamiliar but comfortable on his face. He feels more at ease in this new skin than he ever thought he would, and he throws back his head, eyes closing and laughing wildly.

“Plagg!” he shouts, purposely ignoring the niggling thought that he can be heard, that he’s intruding—he is no longer just Adrien Agreste, he is Chat Noir and he can do _anything_ —and even though the kwami cannot respond, Adrien speaks to him anyway. “You never said being Chat would be this _fun_!”

He pauses cheekily, as if waiting for an answer, his smile growing wider with every beat of silence. He laughs again, turning around and running for the next roof, whooping loudly as he lands. He only shrieks a little bit when his foot slips.

He regains his balance with a fair amount of drama and waits, chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath, his uncontainable joy fading into something calmer and more controllable. When he stands he is more composed again, but no matter how hard he tries he can’t stop smiling.

“I love this,” he whispers to himself. He runs his hands through his messy hair and around his fake ears, spins the end of the leather tail and brushes his fingers over the short metal pole strapped to his hip.

“I love this,” he repeats, and takes out the metal pole, maybe a staff or baton, and he grins as he looks over it—can’t be much different from fencing, right?—spinning it around his hands and jumping when it suddenly elongates.

“I love this!” he cheers, and twirls, the weapon moving with him, a mock fight atop the roof with only the stars witness to his show. He doesn’t care about the occasional bouts of bad luck—it means nothing to him now. The little sprite he’d met only a week before, for all his whining and annoying habit of vanishing, has given Adrien something he has never had before.

Freedom. An identity separate from his father’s name. A chance to be who he has always wished to be.

It is more than Adrien has ever dreamed of.

So caught up in his euphoria, he doesn’t notice the shifting shadows behind him, nor does he hear the solid thump of the intruder’s footsteps. His instincts are what save him—a slight shiver down his spine; the sudden and urgent feeling of _GET AWAY, GET AWAY **NOW**_ —

Without thinking, he throws himself to the side, his motions hurried and rushed. A whip of thread cracks over where he used to stand as he skids across the stone, scrambling for a handhold to keep from going over the edge.

He stares, shocked and terrified as the assailant comes into view, laughing wickedly as she approaches. Her hair is pale yarn, her face stretched into a wide smile. Stiches run across her mouth and connect to her joints, her eyes blank and empty. Two whips hang from her hands, loose thread intertwined into a deadly weapon.

“Stay still, little kitty,” she coos, stepping closer. “It’ll only take a second! I need some more red dye, is all… just a bit of red dye to create my masterpiece…”

He scrambles to his feet, snatching up the metal staff and holding it out threateningly, trying to quell his shaking hands. His earlier joy is gone, replaced with a cold realization. He is in danger, and even if he has a weapon in his hands, he has no idea how to use it properly.

“You seem a bit knotted up,” he blurts without thinking, voice shaking despite his weak attempt at humor, and _god_ this joke is terrible, _why_ is he talking to the clearly homicidal lady? “Bad day at work?”

Her empty eyes widen, face twisting in outrage. “Do you think yourself clever, boy?” she snarls and her hands rise, the loose strands of thread coiling together to reform her whips. The look in her eyes freezes him in place, because Adrien has never fought anyone seriously and she really means to hurt him, she actually wants to _kill_ —

The whips fly forward but something wraps around his wrist and yanks him back before it can hit. It snaps just before his face, cracking inches away from his nose. He shrieks and stumbles back, managing to catch himself before he can fall. He grips his staff tightly to keep it slipping from his hold, palms sweaty beneath his gloves.

Another girl enters his field of vision, but unlike the other she isn’t so much creepy as she is stunning. Her gloved hands are tangled in red string, connected to the yoyo that is twisted around his wrist.

Her hair is pitch black, her suit a shimmering red in the dim lamplights. Her eyes gleam, and her face is set into a calm and determined expression, eyes narrowed and focused on the thread-girl. She looks over at Adrien briefly, the anger fading to be replaced with concern.

“Are you all right?” she asks, and when he gives her a dazed nod, smiles softly in relief. Her teeth gleam brightly in the soft glow, and he feels like he’s been clobbered over the head, his thoughts muddling.

“Good,” she says, and then notices his weapon and nods to it. “Can you use that?”

Adrien stops, shaking free from his daze and looking down, then looking back at her. “I can try?”

“Good enough.” She stops, surveying the thread-girl, whose eyes are unfocused, the outline of what looks like some sort of butterfly surrounding her eyes. The purple outline fades and her gaze fixes on them again, a cruel smile twisting her lips. She stalks towards them, whips clenched tight in her fists.

“Think you can distract her?” Adrien’s savoir asks, one eyebrow cocked, expression hopeful.

Adrien Agreste would nod uncertainly and politely. His response would be expected of him, expected of the son of the biggest designer—reserved, good-mannered, quiet.

But he is not just Adrien Agreste anymore, he is Chat Noir, he is new and unmade, and he straightens to his full height before bowing deeply and dramatically, exclaiming cheerily, “Oh, most definitely! Anything for you, miss.”

He winks at her, smile impish.

Her eyes widen and she pauses, confused—and then the tension eases from her shoulders and she sighs heavily, rolling her eyes at the dark sky above them and muttering, “You do that, then.”

Chat laughs at that, trying to ignore the fluttering in his gut—she looks adorable when exasperated, holy crap. He hefts up his staff, now longer than his forearm, and charges at the thread-girl with a wild whoop, stealing her attention away from the other.

The ensuing fight is long and painful. The girl fights with more skill than he, though not much. Sometimes her yoyo misses and hits him instead, and fencing with a metal staff is harder than he’d thought it would be. He gets hit more than he has ever before, and thread-girl’s whips are shockingly painful when she manages to strike one of them.

Finally, the two of them gain the upper hand, the girl using a power called “Lucky Charm” to help her trap the thread-girl. Chat darts forward to rip off a woven bracelet at his savior’s request, pulling the threads apart easily.  A black butterfly flutters up from the remains, and Chat jumps away from it, startled.

The girl purifies the black butterfly, letting it free with a wave and a soft smile that captures Chat’s attention immediately. A red light rushes through the air, clearing away the evidence of their battle, and leaving a confused and obviously human seamstress where the villain used to be.

Chat grins, giddy with the thrill of success, and holds out his closed fist to the girl. “Great job!”

She eyes him, seemingly startled by the action, but finally smiles and firmly bumps her closed fist against his with a pleased, “Mission accomplished!”

For a moment they are left beaming breathlessly at each other, the taste of victory infectious and addictive. The sound of faraway sirens beaks the spell they are under, and the girl pulls away, though the brightness lingers in her eyes.

"C’mon,” she says, clipping her yoyo back to her belt. “She’ll be fine. We need to get out of here before the police come.”

"Smart as well as deadly,” Chat says cheerfully, and smirks at her when she glares back. He takes it as a good sign that her lips twitch in an effort to quell her smile. Obviously she isn’t _too_ annoyed.

They leave quickly, dashing across the roofs together, flipping around obstacles and flying over the gaps. It’s partly a race and partly just— _them_ , two strangers so in-tune with one another that it’d be creepy if they weren’t too tired to really consider it.

Finally the girl halts and holds up one hand to stop him as well, looking back over her shoulder with a sigh. “We should be fine here,” she explains, bring up one hand to brush by her ear. “We don’t have much time to talk but…well, I guess we should get acquainted at the very least.”

Chat smirks at her wordlessly and she huffs a sarcastic laugh, shoving him gently. “Are you always this much of a jokester?” she asks, but doesn’t give him time to respond, just goes straight to her real question. “You have a kwami, right?”

Chat blinks, then nods, suddenly excited. “You too?”

“Yeah!” She grins, propping one hand on her waist. "Tikki said I’d be meeting someone who would help me with the crime fighting soon. I guess that’s you.”

She hesitates, and then determinedly holds out her hand, smiling up at him. This close, he can see that her eyes are a bright burning blue, like summer skies and gasoline fires. She is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen, and her smile, tentative but kind, is so genuine it makes him dizzy.

“I’m Ladybug,” she says calmly, voice sure and steady. “It’s nice to meet you.”

His returning smile is wide and cheeky, and he bows to her again, his eyes never straying from her face. Usually he’d never be so bold, so forward, but there is no one here to care and the realization makes him feel ecstatic.

“Chat Noir,” he returns, and he takes up her hand and places a quick kiss on her knuckles, the fabric rough and cool against his lips. The city lights reflect in her widening eyes and he beams up at her, pleased to note what might be a blush blooming across her cheeks.

"And it’s very nice to meet you as well, my Lady,” he finishes, and when she shoves him, rolling her eyes with a sigh, all he does is laugh.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you were wondering whether the shift from "Adrien" to "Chat" was intentional--yes. Yes it was.


End file.
